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Faith : September 23, 2001

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Rivertree

P. Raghunandan

The night was young, we sat on a rough-hewn stone bench under a small parijatha tree, this Adept and I, outside a small village shrine. He was a young man, but on whose shoulders rested the wisdom of seers. The night was brilliant with starlight; the small range of mountains loomed dark and quiet in the background. Some distance away shone the light from the village electric street lamp, casting pools of light into a beautiful night. We sat in silence, the Adept in perfect ease, and I, used to city noises, fidgeting in the silence. We took the silence in for a few minutes and heard the sounds of the night coming from the jungle nearby. Then in a quiet voice he asked me, "How are you?" I replied in what I thought was a learned manner, "God's in His Heaven and All's right with this world". He looked at me, smiled and gently asked, "Where is this Heaven of His?" This rattled me and I muttered a vague reply hoping to put him off.

Ashok Nath/Fotomedia

"In the Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna 'I am everything and everything is me'. Meaning that all of the creation is the Lord and the Lord is all of creation. If that be true, doesn't the Lord reside in you, me and the tree above us?" "You mean the Lord is also in a lowly worm like me?" I asked in false modesty. I did not get a reply immediately; he was staring straight ahead into the middle distance lost in the silence around us. "Look at it this way", he suggested, slowly turning towards me, "since the time this whole universe was created, there has been only one version of you. If He had wanted He could have created a million copies of you, yet since the Big Bang to the end, He created only one of you. If that is not a manifestation of the divine, what is?" and fell back into silence.

The enormity of his suggestion did not immediately sink in; slowly I came to notice my breath had become quieter and the silence was enjoyable. As I heard the breeze playing through the fronds of the coconut trees, it slowly came to me - He was part of me and I a part of Him. "It is not egotistic", he said, as if reading my mind, "to say He is part of me. In fact, it is a very humble statement to acknowledge that Iswaran is a part of you. Then you become a part of all creation." I felt so different, I was so special because there was only one of me in several billion years and yet I was that which made up every thing.

"Modern science says 'Matter is energy and energy is matter' and this energy is everywhere and in everything. Isn't that what our ancient seers had been saying?" he added, giving my modern mind something to think about. My mind took a few minutes to digest such radical thinking; I kept watching the stars as a few bats flitted past catching insects.

The stars, the bats, the insects and I were all part of the same thing? My friend sat in his quite reverie, plainly comfortable with himself and the whole world. He gave me a drink of water from his water bottle and said, "You don't take Iswaran from some place else and bring Him in to you. He is already there, you just have to increase your awareness of His presence within you."

The top of the little shrine near us, seems to shine by itself, as I struggled and came to terms with this beautiful idea. I became connected all at once with this universal energy and all of creation. There was a great secure feeling of being one with everything and seeing myself as part of this universe. I have, like most people, worried about the future and feared about past mistakes coming to haunt me. Life seemed to be a big burden, whenever I felt so lonely, so small and lost in this world. In an electric wave of relief, all those nagging worries, fears and doubts fell away (at least for the moment) and there was only sheer bliss; pure delight in realising that I was a part of Iswaran and not apart.

"Now tell me," he said, breaking the silence "Where is His Heaven?" My voice came out in a croak as I barely whispered, "Iswara! You are incredible". The wind rustled through the leaves above and the night fell silent as if all of creation was in agreement.